


A Bridal Cloak for Jon

by Rumaan



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Based on Kari's Headcanon, F/M, Family, Nostalgia, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-21
Updated: 2016-01-21
Packaged: 2018-05-15 08:24:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,480
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5778424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rumaan/pseuds/Rumaan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On her return to Winterfell, Sansa finds an old sewing project that brings unexpected results.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Bridal Cloak for Jon

**Author's Note:**

  * For [pennylane4](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pennylane4/gifts).



> Based on [themiddleliddle's](http://themiddleliddle.tumblr.com/) [head canon](http://aliceofalonso.tumblr.com/post/131859022408/fluffy-headcanon-time) regarding Sansa making a bridal cloak for Jon.
> 
> Many thanks to [aliceofalonso](http://aliceofalonso.tumblr.com/) for not only sharing this head canon with the wider world, but also getting me invested to write this!

Tears filled Sansa’s eyes as she looked around her bedchamber at Winterfell. Most of her furniture was burnt and the thick grey stones had scorch marks licking up them as if there was still a fire raging.

This had been her home where she had spent many a happy memory. The thought of Winterfell, of her family, had sustained her through many a tough time. However, now she was back, all she could see was a blackened ruin that needed much money to restore it to its former glory.

A tear slid down her cheek as she fingered through the half burnt remnants of her room. A chest in the corner caught her eye. Somehow it had survived the worst of the fire – possibly because it was more steel than wood. It had been her lady grandmother’s, Lyarra, and Father had passed it over to her with much ceremony when she was young, stressing the importance of house heirlooms. Sansa winced when she thought how little she had appreciated the gift, thinking it ugly and dull. She had wanted only pretty things then; wood that was intricately carved with flowers and smelled like sunshine. She had almost cried with jealousy with Mother had given Arya a similar gift; a pretty box for jewels carved from rosewood that had the Tully fish swimming in rivers surrounded by water lilies that had belonged to Minisia Tully. Sansa had sulked at being the oldest and, therefore, the one who got Lyarra Stark’s sombre chest rather than the beautiful Tully heirloom. After all, _she_ was the one who looked like a Tully.

However, now she felt nothing but sadness and longing when she espied the chest. The Boltons may have burnt Winterfell, but they could not erase Starks from the castle. Winterfell had always belonged to the Starks and Lyarra’s chest was a testament to how durable House Stark was.

Lifting the lid, Sansa smiled as she pulled old dresses out. They would no longer fit her, she was far too tall, but they were about Arya’s size. Calling for her sister, she started to lay them out on the bed ready for Arya to choose which ones she may like.

At the bottom, she came across a heavy fur lined grey cloak. The material was not as rich as most of the other clothes. As she shook it out, a flash of white caught her eye and a gasp escaped her as she remembered what she had been working on quietly for several moons the year before the royal party had come to Winterfell and destroyed her world.

“What’s that?” Arya asked coming in.

“A bridal cloak,” Sansa replied.

“With what sigil? I’ve never seen a house with that sigil before and _why_ would you have a non-Stark bridal cloak in your possession?”

Sansa ran her hand lovingly over the half-completed white direwolf. “It was for Jon,” she said. “I started making it for him when I was younger.”

Arya gave her a quizzical look.

“I felt sorry for him. He had no cloak to give the girl he married. He may not have had our name, but he was still a Stark of Winterfell and I wanted him to have something that represented that.”

Huffing out a little laugh, her sister fingered one corner of the cloak. “Trust you to get all romantic about Jon’s bastard status.”

“It worried me greatly!” Sansa protested, shoving Arya’s shoulder gently.

Nothing had given Sansa more pleasure then when her retinue from the Vale had been accosted by a slim girl in Braavosi clothing with a huge wolf pack at her side just outside Saltpans. Lord Royce’s household guards had not wished to let the girl through thinking she was nought more than a vagabond seeking largesse from nobles. However, Sansa, catching a glimpse of a huge direwolf that had caused her stomach to roil with anticipation and anxiety, had insisted the girl be let through. Her suspicions about the identity of the lone girl with the wolf pack had been proved right and tears had coursed down her cheeks as she laid eyes on Arya for the first time in several years. The sisters may have been on bad terms when they last saw each other, but that disappeared in the face of all the hardship they had suffered since and the joy of their reunion. Of course, they had discussed their differences, Sansa sobbing out an apology for the years of teasing and Arya clutching her closely with a fierceness that showed how much love there was between them.

“We should finish it,” Arya said.

“What?”

“We should finish the cloak. Think how touched Jon would be to receive that.”

“But the queen wants to legitimise him. He would have a fine cloak of House Targaryen to gift to any political bride Daenerys finds for him.”

Arya snorted in derision. “Jon is not going to accept her offer. He hates King’s Landing – the little that remains of it – and has no plans to stay in the South. He has been sounding out Lord Commander Baratheon, to see whether he could be accepted back in the Night’s Watch.”

Sansa frowned. “He cannot do that. If he does not wish to participate in Queen Daenerys’ court, then he must come home – to Winterfell.”

“I _told_ him that, but he made some excuse about how he’s not a Stark.”

Rolling her eyes, Sansa could imagine her cousin saying such a thing. He’d taken the news of his parentage hard. She had seen but a little of him, but there had been a stiffness in his interactions with her, as if he did not know where he now stood. Arya had complained long and bitterly about just how stupid Jon was being. That he’d be her brother always, no matter what. Sansa had winced a little, wishing she could express the same sentiment, but the stern man who’d formally greeted her had seemed a world away from the awkward, lanky boy she’d last seen in the yard at Winterfell. In fact, before he’d turned to face her and she’d seen who he was, she’d been appreciating the view his broad shoulders and strong legs made and shame at ogling her former half-brother, now cousin, had her stammering out stilted replies to him. It had not made their interaction any more comfortable and she was sure that he thought she held him contempt due to the nature in which he had been fathered. That had made her feel even more awkward because it was unspoken and therefore she could not outright deny it.

Contemplating the cloak, Sansa thoughtfully tapped on the grey material as she composed of list of things they would need to complete it. “I guess we will just have to show him just how much of a Stark he is.”

Arya grinned and said, “I never thought I’d see the day when I willing sheathed my Needle for a sewing needle.”

\------------

Just over ten moons later, Sansa smiled fondly as she looked down on the stitching that ran down the left side of the cloak lengthwise. It wasn’t the neatest stitching ever – a little crooked in places with some of the white stitches far too large than was seemly for such an important cloak. The direwolves around the left side of the neck weren’t particularly recognisable either, but Sansa did not care for how the left side of the cloak did not match the right side in skill. Instead, she saw a bridal cloak that had been made with love and care by two sisters who had found each other once more and put their rocky childhood relationship behind them.

“I name thee Lady Sansa Stark of House Whitestark, my beloved wife,” Jon intoned behind her, stumbling a little over the words before the Heart Tree in the Winterfell godswood.

She had not imagined just how close the bridal cloak for Jon would’ve brought her to her cousin, their love for each other blossoming despite of their intentions to try and smother it. Nor had she imagined standing here marrying Jon, wearing the same cloak she had started back when she was a girl of just one and ten. Yet, it seemed fitting that she had not only stitched her maiden’s cloak but also her bridal cloak. It was symbolic of the fact that she was not leaving her family even if she and Jon were rebuilding an ancient abandoned holdfast that lay a day’s ride to the north-east to Winterfell where they were to rule as founding members of House Whitestark. The banners of a white direwolf on a grey background hung interspaced with the Stark banner of grey direwolf on white background in the Great Hall for the wedding feast showing just how close this new cadet branch of House Stark stood with Winterfell.

**Author's Note:**

> You can find [me ](http://rumaan.tumblr.com/) on tumblr where I fangirl very heavily about House Stark among other things.


End file.
